The one stretch of undistracted time most of us have is when we take vacation. The temptation — my temptation, almost always succumbed to — is to go catatonic, escaping the working world into the oblivion of Ludlum. But when I settle into my next holiday, I’m hoping to resist that urge. I hope to use the rare gift of an empty mind to grapple with a big idea or two — with a chunk of Marx, maybe, since I’ve never read a word he’s actually written, or with that Foucault that’s been gathering dust.

Judging from my experience last winter, once you get over the initial hump and start to dig into a text that’s big and weighty, you get an unmatched mental charge.

We play tennis on vacation, or go for strenuous hikes. We might get just as much pleasure from working out some little-used parts of our brains.

via Getting a mental kick from tackling tough books.

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